Do your family/friends benefit from the 50% spousal benefit? How old is the person taking this benefit (or how old are they now if they are planning to take the benefit when they are older)?

Don't bother posting about parents older than Baby Boomers. Not many women worked, or worked much, in older generations. Although in my case, my mother earned a higher benefit than my father--but not so much higher that he needed the 50% benefit.

NOTENot the widow/widower 100% benefit, but the 50% benefit where both souses are living but one earned so much less of a Social Security benefit on their own work record that they do better taking 50% of their spouse's. Including ex-spouse's..

I/my spouse am/is taking/will take the 50% benefit and is a Baby Boomer (66 or younger).

I/my spouse am/is taking/will take the 50% benefit and is older than a Boomer.

At least one of my siblings/their spouse is/will take the 50% benefit.

No close relatives, but more distant ones and/or friends are taking/will take it.

I started making a list of relatives, friends and acquaintances who take/will take the 50% benefit, but it all comes down to one of two things:

+ Spouses of high earners (executives, doctors/dentists, professors), who worked part-time, intermittently, or at much lower-earning endeavors.

+ Women (and a few men) not reporting their income, or not reporting all of it, and planning to get their spousal 50% when their spouses retire.

But the majority of couples I know my age and younger have comparable incomes, many like my husband and me where the lower earner makes/made 1/2-3/4 as much as the higher earner. And as I and others can attest, that's enough for your own benefit to exceed the 50% spousal benefit, even with time off to raise children/care for elders/go to school.

Among the spouses of comparable income, most women were out of the work force longer to go to college than when they were at home with small children.

The only person I know taking the spousal benefit is my Mother-In-Law who is 83 years old. Since FIL died in January of this year I believe she is now recieving his full benefit?

My wife has always made about twice as much money as what I made but doing the math, and comparing her social security statement with mine, I think I'll come out a little better by taking my social security on my own record. I think like ~ $50/month more per month using my own work history? I've got a couple of years to go before I'm elegible so when the time comes I'll check out again and see where I'm at.

She was someone who worked about 8 years before getting married.....then didn't work for the next 15 or 17 years until the kids were in college and they needed the money to pay for college......then she worked until she was 59..when my dad took disability at age 60.

She also got most of his pension since that is how they had taken it. Less per month while both alive. But it continued after his death. She got to collect on it for another 10 years. (22 years of pension paid).

So my mom probably worked maybe 22 years or so....never would have had it easy if she had to depend only on SS.......and she likely never maxed out......she had secretarial type jobs. Executive secretaries didn't make fantastic pay.

I plan to draw 50% Social Security spousal benefit even though my own benefits will be much higher than my ex-husbands. Why you ask?

Because at some point (probably age 70), I will switch over to my benefits.

Over time, this method should allow me to collect more in benefits than just collecting on my record...

I believe you need to start your spousal SS benefit no earlier than full retirement age (66 for most of us here-) to do this. I'm not waiting. I'm nervous enough, with the talk about benefit give-backs, that we haven;t started collecting already... I almost picked up the phone to call SS and put it in motion yesterday!

Not just discrimination against single people. The non-working wife of a rich man gets more from SS, to which she never contributed, than a woman who worked for low wages for 40 years. the govt shouldn't be giving more to people who already have more...but then a lot of programs are like that, contrary to popular belief.

=alstro, arrived 15 minutes early for my cataract surgery and the building isn't even open yet! Yeas, I'm a little nervous...lasers in my eyeball and all that...

=alstro, arrived 15 minutes early for my cataract surgery and the building isn't even open yet! Yeas, I'm a little nervous...lasers in my eyeball and all that...

I assume you mean you are having an artificial lens inserted. I have two such lenses. The procedure, while scary to think about, is painless and fast. No lasers. Compared to a dental filling, this is easy.

OTOH, if they are attacking the cataract with lasers, please ignore my comments, as I am FOS.

Not just discrimination against single people. The non-working wife of a rich man gets more from SS, to which she never contributed, than a woman who worked for low wages for 40 years. the govt shouldn't be giving more to people who already have more...but then a lot of programs are like that, contrary to popular belief.</i/

You are correct, of course. I am in favor of individuals having their own benefit and tax status without regard to their being married, single, or head of household. The discrimination is much wider than that, and I doubt our stupid society will ever grow up or get wise enough to implement appropriate changes.

Best wishes for great results and a speedy recovery from your eye surgery.

"Not just discrimination against single people. The non-working wife of a rich man gets more from SS, to which she never contributed, than a woman who worked for low wages for 40 years. the govt shouldn't be giving more to people who already have more...but then a lot of programs are like that, contrary to popular belief"

heh heh

YOu libs want your cake and eat it too.

Pelosi was just on the tube telling us that 'YOu earned your entitlements'...

duh...so the (wealth envy) 'rich' man gets more from SS?

Actually, he gets back a much smaller return on his 'investment' that the lady who worked for low wages who gets back 70% or more........while he gets back 25 or 30%.....

And, what about the wife of a 'low wage worker' who also gets to collect, and collects a larger percentage of his pay when they retire?

And, of course, you left out farm wives and other wives who help out in the family business but don't take an income....maybe sweat away 40 or 50 hours a week...or 80 during harvest.....or xmas rush...... but aren't 'paid'........ and their husbands die? (of course, their husbands pay taxes on the profits of the business, and SS taxes)......

You'd let them freeze and starve to death? Whether their husbands were 'poor' or 'rich' or 'low wage' or 'rich'...

a lot of high income earners aren't rich...they spend everything they make.......they have little wealth......

on the other hand, maybe your millionaire next door doesn't make all that much, but knows how to invest, grwo his business, and have a net worth of a million bucks?

You folks with wealth envy always get me.

The people who spend and blow their incomes each month and get to 65 with no savings...you shower with benefits.....'they are entitled'....and the people who did without all the luxuries and spending and spending, carefully managed their finances, saved for retirement.....and have a little nest egg....you'd deny them the benefits they'd paid for for 40 or 50 years of working.

I assume you mean you are having an artificial lens inserted. I have two such lenses. The procedure, while scary to think about, is painless and fast. No lasers. Compared to a dental filling, this is easy.

I had a cataract removed and the lens replaced. I didn't find it totally painless and fast (time does not fly when you're undergoing weirdness), but then I agreed to be part of a study using a laser to remove the cataract. They gave me extra WooWoo drugs since my normal 118/72 BP shot up to 144/something--and that was in the prep room(!)...but not enough to make me find it comfortable. I didn't enjoy getting poked in my eye, stretching out the lids, pressure on my eye or what I could see with my eye forced open (which in itself is unpleasant although not painful). With my eye forced open, it was very bright and sort of a curvy, lumpy kaleidoscope of white and black orgganic weirdness. I will be slow to do the other eye, but that cataract is tiny yet. The drops I've been using to prep for the past few days sting now, but that's to be expected, and they only sting for a minute each (although that's 12 drops of sting a day!)--now that I think about it, they mostly sting on the inside of the lower lid--perhaps it's sore from being held open.

Neck & neck with major dental work IMO, although I don't have residual ache like I do with dental work.

There were a few nice things about it...I had a pleasant conversation with a retired fisherman/shrimper in the waiting room, the staff was uniformly pleasant and my pep cube had a full view of the "nurse's station so I could see their camaraderie, they had a lovely large painting by one of my favorite low country artists (Margaret Petterson) in full view of my prep cubicle. Most of all, I can see that the cataract is gone, but my eye is a bit burry both with and without glasses. I'll discuss that at my followup in the morning.